Microsoft's Lauren ad faked say bloggers - Page 5

Hey Linux is cheaper than Microsoft Windows, does that mean Windows is overpriced, think before you write.

what? fictional advertisements? i'm shocked. say it ain't so.

the next thing you know you'll be telling me that the mom and daughter on the swing in the park talking about 'freshness' aren't really mom and daughter at all. for shame.

Ya I see a pattern, no matter what your opinion is... Mac has been unable to destroy Microsoft. Wait they took 4% market share of 100%! lol

That is nothing. At the end of the day its 90% OF THE MARKET that WINDOWS CONTROLS!

To put it in basic terms.....

Canadian population 33 million. United States of America 300+ million people. 10x the amount.

Mac is 8.9%. Windows is 89%. 10x the size. OUCH!

My AIA meeting just ended. Seems that the faithful at Apple are worried. Time to do something about it. Time to bash Microsoft. Because that is the only way we can poke at them... But this is the immature way. Let's be more adult like and worry about Apple and not the competition.


We have a lot to worry about with Apple... Stay tuned.

I think your comments hit the mark. In reality, I think the fanboys are getting all hot and bothered at the mere notion that there maybe exists some people who actually enter and leave an Apple Store in under a minute, despite this being a paid-actor commercial. Yep, Microsoft hit the mark, indeed.

What are you? A child?


A troll?

Who said anything about "destroy"? I ask again kid, are you a child? You seem to be equating business with some kind of first person shooter.

The OP and indeed my post are all about Microsoft's latest advertising campaign. Is there any chance that you could be mature enough to discuss the topic at hand?

The problem with your argument is that Apple was never showing the PROCESS of playing those games. Apple was showing the games and what the iPhone was capable of.

Microsoft on the other hand was showing a process of going out and looking for a computer and this is where this ad is misleading. The process of going out and buying something includes going out to competitors and seeing what they have. This was not done as can be shown by the included YouTube video, either that or the supposed people on the street and in the store who aren't meant to be actors really are actors or that bald dude with the camera is such a slow walker that an octogenarian in a Zimmer frame looks like Speedy Gonzales, editing aside.

To say the ads are trying to do the same thing in itself is misleading.

Also, that Songsmith ad is so bad it could never be good bad. Why are all the songs more or less the same? Why does it not show someone screaming into the mic and getting a heavy metal song out of it?... Oh right, cheap cheap microphones. (Yes I do realise that the first shots are with a Mac but the mic in that isn't exactly special).

There wasn't originally the disclaimer in the iPhone ad, and that's why Apple got sued over it.

This article reads like an Apiril fools day joke.

AppleInsider thinks the people in commercials aren't actors?

Do they also think the dancers in Apple's iPod commercials are just really enthusiastic Apple fans?

TV commercials are scripted - get over it.

Bizarre.

What a pathetic loser you have to be to look Microsoft's ad in slow motion!!

Hey check out the new PC hunter advertisement from Microsoft, featuring this time "Giampolo".

This one is IMO much better than the Lauren one, seems a lot more natural. I can see the ads being a bit more successful if they continue along this trend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRF9-5itZA4

What a ridiculous article.
Apart from this, I think it's very childish when companies need to bash their competition in their advertisement in order to sell their product. One of the biggest weaknesses of Apple if you ask me.

Come to think of it, of course Lauren couldn't find what she was looking for in the Apple store.

It was full of people playing around on the computers and testing them out. Oh wait, that's the point of the place. Not simply to lay stuff out on shelves in order of price.

If she were serious enough about wanting to buy one, she probably would have stayed longer or done like most do nowadays and go online and try out the customizing options.

Thankfully I don't have to buy a computer any time soon, or else I'd get pissed watching commercials like this.

It's called an ADVERTISEMENT, you douchebags. Man, bloggers have waaay too much time on their hands.

I do own an IPhone 3G, and it either shows a WiFi symbol, or "3G" (or an "E" for EDGE, or a dot for other data networks, or nothing for no data). Not both. Ever.

Yeah, right. And Mac Guy ad about Macs being easier to connect/communicate with digital cameras than PCs is dead right as well.

Please, show me a digital camera that comes with Mac support but no (or limited) PC support.

I don't know of any digital camera that doesn't come with Mac support built in. Plug it in and iPhoto will open up and ready you for the import of your choice.

There is still a number of consumers who want something but will not pay it themselves. Kids. Regarding that, I think that MS ad makes perfect sense trying to inform parents (who might be very computer illiterate) about alternatives... so when the kid barges in and says "Mom, I want new Macbook for my school projects, it is only XYZW bucks", mom might remember seeing ad and reply with "Bugger of, you'll get HP instead, it has bigger screen and full keyboard and is much cheaper - if it's good for that girl, it'll be good for you too!".

Will such parents really look at service/support, screen quality... stuff like that? I doubt it. They'll probably stick with price and screen size; shopping for a LCD/plasma TV based on size (rather than number of ports, screen resolution, additional features) is something they are likely already familiar with.

It makes much sense to me.

Same with Windows - plug camera in and window will pop out offering you to transfer photos, brows them directly from camera, etc.

Yet Mac ad I've mentioned is showing PC guy not being able to communicate with cool new Japanese camera, while Mac guy talks with camera on good Japanese no prob.

You don't think that is misleading? You don't think some average Joe first time digital camera buyer hasn't drawn conclusion that if he wants to copy and email his digital photos to friends and relatives, he would not be able to do it on Windows machine..? \

I think the ad was supposed to show that Macs can connect the camera out of the box, no additional drivers or software needed. In that sense, that ad is probably outdated now, I think Windows includes a photo slurping & organization program.

Seriously, it's a commercial. It's called ACTING. I suppose these people also thought that Seinfeld and Gates were actually living with that family and that the guys in the "I'm A Mac" commercials are really a Mac and a PC projecting a human form???

Contrived or not, people DO have a specific budget and DO want or need specific hardware features. The fact is, there are real life people in this situation.

Head over to ZDNet to see the Windows zealots furiously defending Lauren's decision as if she were a REAL customer. It's frighteningly hilarious!

I bet she got thrown out of the store

Bloggers forensically studied the advertisement in slow motion, pointing out that the shots of Lauren entering and leaving the store appear to have been shot all at once; the surrounding people walking past in both shots appear in the same place. This must mean, they conclude, that Lauren never entered the store looking for the $1000 17 notebook, and that the ad simply included a scene at the Mac store to offer Apple some additional free advertising.
Of course, it doesnt really matter if Lauren walked into the store and spent any length of time there. The entire ad was contrived by definition. Lauren wasnt given money to find the ideal computer for her needs, she was given a specific budget and told to find a specific hardware feature that Apple does not carry.
Apple only sells one 17 notebook with a high quality, full resolution screen. No PC maker ships anything comparable to the MacBook Pro for under $1000. As the ad points out however, there are plenty of low quality, low resolution 17 screens available from PC makers trying to dangle low prices in front of consumers in the overcrowded, low differentiation market for low end, generic PCs that ship with Windows Vista.
Why would Microsofts production company waste its time following Lauren around the Apple Store with a camera, when they knew full well that the PC definition theyd cooked up wasnt one of the three simple notebook family members Apple offers? And why would Lauren, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, waste her time acting out a role that she wasnt even making union wages on?
Lauren may well have simply been looking for a free computer on Craigslist, and not intending to act out a fake role for Microsoft. After all, pretty much everyone in LA is in the SAG, just as everyone in San Francisco is a DJ. Nobody has uncovered Microsofts ad script telling Lauren to pretend to fruitlessly search among Apples notebook offerings for a period of time. The company didnt need to do that; it merely wanted to create the suggestion that Lauren failed to find a specific combination of features because she wasnt cool enough for a Mac, and that Apples products are too elite and smart and customers should fear them with angry resentment.

It's fine to say that the ad is contrived, but a lot of the arguments used to shoot it down is all contrived, such as:


Poppycock. I don't know what hardware feature you are talking about, Apple carries a 17" model. It's just not a screen size they offer in a consumer notebook. To imply that Apple's 17" is really the machine that she needs is a bit much, chances are, probably not. Most people don't need the "pro" level performance, features and marketing, which leads to the pro level price.


The screen looked pretty nice when I looked at the machine, definitely a lot nicer than I would expect for the price. It's a decent 100ppi screen, which is roughly the same pixel density as Apple's desktop monitor. Apple uses a 133ppi screen on their 17", which I don't think is for everyone. It's also a resolution that most Apple fans that talked about it said is too much, but now, it's convenient to say the opposite.

A big blind spot with the "full resolution" argument is that if it means a certain number of pixels, Apple doesn't offer their 15" with "full resolution", there are 15" notebooks out there that offer 1920 resolution as an option. Besides, using the term "full resolution" without being deliberately ironic makes people sound like marketing 'tards, because it's a term that doesn't really mean anything.

It really doesn't matter if it is faked or not. They didn't even try to convince us that she was ever actually INSIDE the Apple Store, and I really doubt Apple would've let them film inside the store.

Regardless, MS appears to have gotten wind of the criticism. The commercial aired again last night during NBC's Medium. The shot of Lauren entering the store has been removed. No matter what your arguments are for or against MS and their advertising techniques, they were concerned enough to change the commercial. Seems that MS has accepted that they were busted and they apparently agreed to some extent.

Yep. happened in my house. I've always used Apple computers at home, school, and every place I've ever worked, going back longer than the Mac has even existed. I have my first ever PC in my house now (a new HP laptop), because Apple simply does not make the hardware that my wife wanted. She hates Windows almost as much as I do, but giving up the features she needed was not worth it to get the OS she preferred.